Occupy strike descends into chaos

Published 9:49 am, Thursday, November 3, 2011

Derek Winslow, 26, of Oakland is arrested early on Thursday, November 3, 2011 during the violent Occupy Oakland general strike. A peaceful daylong protest turned violent late Wednesday.

Media: San Francisco Chronicle

OAKLAND -- A long day of mostly peaceful protest in Oakland descended into chaos after midnight. Masked vandals shattered windows, set fires and plastered downtown businesses with graffiti before police moved in, dispersing crowds with tear gas and flash-bang grenades and making dozens of arrests.

Buildings that had windows smashed early today around City Hall included a Men's Wearhouse store, a dental office and the headquarters of the police internal affairs division.

The street clashes - which hospitalized three protesters and left several officers with minor injuries - happened near Occupy Oakland's tent city in Frank Ogawa Plaza at 14th Street and Broadway, which had been the center of Wednesday's general strike. That event peaked when thousands of people angry at economic inequality marched to the Port of Oakland, shutting it down.

Most of those people had gone home by 11 p.m. Wednesday, when dozens of protesters took over a vacant two-story building at 16th Street and Broadway - two blocks from the encampment - that once housed the nonprofit Travelers Aid Society.

Hundreds of others looked on as protesters barricaded the block at both ends with wooden pallets, trash cans, tables and tires. They hung banners from the building's roof, spray-painted its exterior and chanted, "Whose street, our street!" One group of protesters broke cement blocks into baseball-size rocks.